Pellet guns cause severe eye injuries in Kashmir

'I am the lone son with three sisters. Who will take care of my family?' asks patient number 88 [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir - Despite appeals by rights groups to stop the practice, Indian armed forces have continued to use pellet guns to quell protesters, injuring at least 100 people in the recent violence that broke out in Indiand-administered Kashmir.

Inside the capital Srinagar's Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital, doctors told Al Jazeera that they had performed 100 eye surgeries in the past four days.

"All of them could lose their eyesight," one senior doctor told Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity.

First introduced to Kashmir by duck-hunting British expeditions, pellet guns send in one shot nearly 600 high velocity ball bearings made of lead.

In Kashmir, pellet guns have been used to quell protests for a long time.

Police say it is a non-lethal weapon that helps breaking protests without casualty, but rights groups reject the assertion, saying it blinds people and must be banned.

In the latest tensions, the youngest victim was a four-year-old girl.

Fearing profiling and reprisals of injured youths by police, hospital officials have assigned serial numbers to pellet gun victims to hide their identity. This development came after it emerged that undercover police officers have been roaming in hospitals hunting for injured protesters.

"I was out to get medicine for my mother when a group of soldiers appeared suddenly and fired on me. There were no protests at that time," an 18-year-old student of Budgam district told Al Jazeera.

Nine-year-old Tamana Ashraf of Ganderbal district is another victim being treated at the Srinagar hospital.

She was sitting at the window in her house when pellets whizzed by, hitting her left eye, her mother Shamima told Al Jazeera.

"I saw a small iron ball in her eye. When we tried to hospitalise her, police stopped us and beat us up. I was crying to see what they had done to my daughter. Luckily we managed to reach here," she said.

Number 65 was beaten twice on the way to the hospital by the troops. All the patients in this hospital ward have lost one or two eyes to the pellet injuries. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

'When commander Burhan was killed my family sent me to get my brother and in the process of saving him I was hit with pellets. Now I am on the verge of losing my right eye.' [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Number 19 was talking about his exams when a burst of pellets hit his face, leaving his one eye injured. 'My career, my dreams, my family and my life are devastated by Indian soldiers.' [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Due to heavy inflow of the patents, some beds have two patients lying on it together. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

A pellet victim soundly asleep after having his tests done. Most of the victims do not know if they will retain their eyes. The doctors have no answers for them yet. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Most of the patients do not speak to media due to high policing in the hospital as per the patients. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Beds are laid for patients in the corridors as more patients get admitted in the hospital every day. This is the highest number of pellet patients received ever by any hospital in such a short period of time in Kashmir. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Nine-year-old Tamana, a 5th class student from Ganderbal district, was watching through the window of her house facing the street when a pellet hit her in the eye. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

An elderly lady watches people helping patients being alighted from the ambulances. Chanting slogans of independence has become a norm whenever a patient is received in the hospital. [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]

Friends hospitalised this 15-year-old boy, another patient hit by pellets. Doctors say a number of cases remain unreported as the influential families fly their kids to hospitals in India for expensive eye treatment [Baba Tamim/ Al Jazeera]